A growing roar nearly drowns out her words, and I shake my head. This isn’t the metallic grating of the train. This is deeper, more violent. Clumps of clay and rock rain down around us.
“Take cover!” I shout, kneeling to do the same.
The meager purple light pouring into the trench forsakes me while falling debris clouds my vision. A sandy avalanche descends as a fissure rips through the ceiling. I bend further into a crouch, wrapping my arms behind my head to protect myself from the cascading rubble.
A plume of grainy dust fills the air. I shelter here, waiting for the series of thundering snaps and violent tremors to subside. Seconds feel like minutes as the earth finally settles. I fight the urge to inhale, but my resilience has already been pushed too far today. I succumb to the breath my body so desperately desires, accepting the consequences. Coughing violently, I cradle my nose into my shoulder and try to blink my eyes open to assess the damage, but an unforgiving light makes it a near-impossible feat. Blinding streaks of gold pour into the tunnel from a split in the earth above, diffused by the haze enveloping the trench.
Finally, my lungs begin to clear, but my voice chokes through the debris in my throat.
“Did my clumsy ass somehow cause a real earthquake this time?” I ask rhetorically—but Gem doesn’t respond. “Gem! You okay?”
Still nothing.
My stinging eyes refuse to stay open. Relying on touch alone, I swing my arms around until I find the edge of the trench and lean into it, rising on unsteady feet. Something hot spreads across the back of my right hand, and I pull back.
“Gem!” I call again, straining to peel my lids open long enough to adjust to the onslaught of light. In all my three decades of life, not once have I seen something so painfully bright. It takes several watery blinks before I’m able to peer through squinted lids.
When I do, I immediately wish I could unsee what’s in front of me.
My hand is . . . glowing.
A golden, tingling energy pulses through the veins in my fingers, traveling down my palm and stopping just past my wrist. The heady warmth of it stands in contrast to the permanent chill residing within me.
I gawk at the appendage like it’s betrayed me.
No.
It can’t be.
Head whipping upward, my gaze fixes on the dusty shaft of light beaming through the parted ceiling. Though narrow, the vertical spotlight stretches dozens of feet across, from the surface above to the packed earth along the edge of the trench. Particles of clay dance in its illumination.
Sunlight.
In the exact spot where I placed my hand a mere moment ago.
Myexposedhand.
“Are Sols human?”I’d once asked my mother. She was in the middle of a history lesson, and I’d just learned that the monsters that lurked above began as humans. Prior to that, I’d thought the Solswere evil creatures from birth.
“Not anymore,”my mother replied.“As soon as they allow the sun to mark their veins, they lose their humanity.”
I’d gulped, knowing from that day forward that I’d have nightmares about getting trapped outside with no shadows to shelter me from that fate.“Forever?”
“Forever,”she’d confirmed.
My chest heaves, the weight of that memory condemning me.
How long do I have before the mutation begins? Will I still remember who I am? Who my friends are?
Gem.
“By the darkness,” I whisper as I look past my tainted flesh at the pile of rubble cutting an angled line across the raised pathway—exactly where I’d last seen Gem.
“Gem!” I shout, dismissing my concern of being discovered. There’s no way an earthquake of that magnitude went unnoticed. A horde of day-shift guards will likely arrive in a few minutes to inspect the damage.
Stumbling closer to the edge of the trench, I skirt around the edge of the beam of sunlight and attempt to pull myself up onto an unmarred portion of the path. My wrists buckle, unable to bear my weight, and a few rebellious coughs escape my lungs expelling the last of the debris.
“Sun’s pits.” I groan, wiping my palms along my dress as if clamminess is the issue and not my lack of upper body strength.
